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Project forums => Team Avalanche => Topic started by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 02:33:42

Title: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 02:33:42
It has recently come to my attention that the verdana font was modified slightly to fit ff7. I have looked into it and put a few letters in the game to judge peoples response to the different font. S a v e have been changed.

Please take a look at the image below and let me know what you prefer. If there is sufficient interest in using verdana i will probably change the font.

(http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/5453/font.png)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: willis936 on 2010-07-19 02:37:51
Is it weird that I can't see a difference?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 02:38:33
Dont look at save. take a look at the text at the top of the image.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: willis936 on 2010-07-19 02:42:05
Hmm for some reason the new font looks a lot sharper. I like it.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 02:43:45
Just to let everyone know there is a poll at the top of the page. Please vote.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-07-19 04:23:14
I will go with new assuming that the spacing can be sorted to look smoother :)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 04:24:05
Ill do my best.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Covarr on 2010-07-19 04:25:41
Verdana is a better font than Tahoma in general. Even if it wasn't MUCH more similar to what is seen in-game, it just looks better anyway.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 06:59:10
I will go with new assuming that the spacing can be sorted to look smoother :)

I have done a partial new font and i am glad to say the spacing looks better. I am doing things a bit different this time. Must be why.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-07-19 07:07:54
 8) good!
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Timber on 2010-07-19 07:10:11
Yeah the new looks good, nice work.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: obesebear on 2010-07-19 08:05:01
I can't seem to find the poll option for "Use the one Timu was supposed to finish like 2 years ago", but that's my selection. :)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: dragowulf on 2010-07-19 08:27:01
May I suggest something a little different to make the game font fresh?
(http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/1535/25986632.png)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: halkun on 2010-07-19 08:45:00
No TA is all about maintaining the original graphics but with a hi-res update.

On a related issue, whats with the dropping of the round borders lately?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: dragowulf on 2010-07-19 08:53:08
Round borders?  I dunno I just did a quick edit to sl's image.
Then keep original Verdana:
(http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/7706/78432638.png)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: nikfrozty on 2010-07-19 14:07:25
Verdana's much better since it fits the window much better than tahoma.
dragowulf-what's that font called in your first screenshot? I'm finding some fonts that looks good in the game which is not the original but looks good. *not on topic*
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: JordieBo on 2010-07-19 15:51:31
No TA is all about maintaining the original graphics but with a hi-res update.

The "fresh" font looks good but I agree about maintaining original graphics. Also, how come TA is about originality, yet the TA Download comes with new avatars?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Kudistos Megistos on 2010-07-19 15:54:38
Are you talking about the AC avatars? They're optional, but it is a little odd that avatars based on AC would be part of the project. We'd be better off with higher resolution versions of the normal avatars (which are available already, I believe).
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: willis936 on 2010-07-19 16:02:02
Dragowulf's looks closer to the original font which I like.  I think you should go for a font that's blocky like the original but less pixely.
I also agree that the AC avatars, new map, and colored menu items don't line up with the project's mission statement but giving the option doesn't hurt.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: BloodShot on 2010-07-19 16:04:10
May I suggest something a little different to make the game font fresh?
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/1535/25986632.png

That font looks a lot like the starcraft font used in menus.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Timu Sumisu on 2010-07-19 16:47:59
... we offer additional avatars!?!?

@.@ the nerve... Alas, when the bombing mission is done, i think we'll go over some of the options and take out the less lucky candidates. An alternative we went over (maybe this is already in the installer) is to have the ideal art selection for things that have options (materia, maps etc) being default, with a mention of being TA recommended.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 16:57:00
All the extras that were added to the installer were before we had a clear view on what style we were going for. Suffice to say I am not going to sit here all day making fonts that have nothing to do with the original style at all just because we included someone else's work previously.

edit: btw people, if you want an AC font just make one instead of spending all your time modifying my screenshots. Its not hard to do.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: dragowulf on 2010-07-19 20:31:21
Took me roughly 5 min to edit it.  I'm not sure how to modify the fonts.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Tsetra on 2010-07-19 21:15:51
May I suggest something a little different to make the game font fresh?

(Badass font image)


I'd say do that and release separate from TA, that looks a lot better to me. Of course, I've seen the same font for over 10 years now so...
In fact, there are a lot of really sharp ideas that don't quite fall into the TA criteria that should all be grouped into a project and used for people who like the new style. When the Bombing Mission and whatever else afterwards is released, people can simply overwrite what they want with your stuff.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Cyberman on 2010-07-19 21:31:27
Are you talking about the AC avatars? They're optional, but it is a little odd that avatars based on AC would be part of the project. We'd be better off with higher resolution versions of the normal avatars (which are available already, I believe).

I concur, I do not like the AC bitmaps I've seen floating about, and quite frankly too much 'artistic' license can spoil what was.  I think there is some old saying that says "put new stuff in new stuff and old stuff in old stuff" (the stuff was alcohol in containers but I digress).  Redoing the game using 'yet another persons idea of how they should look' is going to lead to much controversy.  Besides I liked much of the original graphics, there was nothing wrong with them just low resolution by today's standards.  It's too bad all the original artwork is gone from FF7 (much of which was hand drawn) I believe the images were scanned and then pixel edited to improve the image.

Cyb
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Nightmarish on 2010-07-19 23:00:51
There seems to be a problem in the letters shadow  :-o
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-19 23:02:55
There seems to be a problem in the letters shadow  :-o

There seems to be a problem with your specificity. What problem do you see?

What I have so far:

(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/7899/font2.png) (http://img6.imageshack.us/i/font2.png/)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Nightmarish on 2010-07-20 19:40:11
This was what i meant:

(http://i28.tinypic.com/2qkp35g.png)

Although in that last window the problem seems solved.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: willis936 on 2010-07-20 19:51:58
Delicious.
Can you post a side by side of both palettes?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-07-20 23:07:43
sl1982  Very good.  Very good indeed.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: jeffdamann on 2010-07-20 23:16:14
This was what i meant:

Wooooo!  Quoting Images.  Warned

Although in that last window the problem seems solved.

Lol in the original Image he only edited the Capitol S and lower case a, v, and e, Thats why it looks funny and also gives you a side by side.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Affenhirn on 2010-07-20 23:17:11
I also like it, but you really have to do something about the spacing between letters.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-21 00:17:01
I also like it, but you really have to do something about the spacing between letters.

Yeah, that is not going to happen. The new font matches up with the original sizes perfectly. So if there is an alignment issue it was there before.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Affenhirn on 2010-07-21 00:32:35
Hm ok, sorry, I didn't remember how the original font looked. Now that I look at it, it's probably because all the letters are positioned in rectangles next to each other which means letters like a W for example will always look a bit too far away...
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-07-29 03:24:48
Hey guys, just a little status update. The main font is done, but i figured I would go through and fix a bunch of other stuff as well. Remade the limit bars and a few icon so far. When I am done the menu lgp should be completed.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-07-31 03:20:59
One thing to be wary of, the small %, - and + characters need to be exact to the original placement. The last font wasn't and that resulted in my menu reconstruction being out...

The small %, + and - appear on the Materia menu, when viewing certain Materia stats (Look at barrier materia and Magic Plus materia under both Equip effect and Ability list ).
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-03 20:51:23
One thing to be wary of, the small %, - and + characters need to be exact to the original placement. The last font wasn't and that resulted in my menu reconstruction being out...

The small %, + and - appear on the Materia menu, when viewing certain Materia stats (Look at barrier materia and Magic Plus materia under both Equip effect and Ability list ).

This should not be a problem as everything is proportioned properly now, which is something I didn't really worry about the first time around. But it seems some people are picky  :P. Anyways seif I will give you an early release of the font so you can test it out with your menu modifications to see if we need to change anything around to get them both working together.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-08-04 07:24:12
Cheers :)!  8)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Shankifer on 2010-08-05 06:58:19
Is the font change having any effect on the flashing "limit"?

Or is that just an implemented color flash that the game gives it?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-08-05 07:44:17
The flash colours are decides by the game as far as I am aware.  In the exe is a little piece of code which decides colour.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-05 10:58:58
Theoretically you could just change the color of the font sheets. But this may screw up other parts of the game.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-11 21:32:30
Yes a double post. But I am allowed so :P

Here is a screen of the new font in action as well as a few other modifications.

(http://a.imageshack.us/img833/2910/guis.jpg) (http://img833.imageshack.us/i/guis.jpg/)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Hellbringer616 on 2010-08-11 21:48:03
Font looks fantastic, The limit bars look different, But in a good way i think. seems Those look like redone borders, Look good minus the seams
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-11 21:56:55
The limit bars are designed to look more like the originals. And the seams on the borders is nothing I can change. It was in the original as well. It has to do with the filtering aali's driver uses.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Timber on 2010-08-12 06:53:20
Text looks good, limit bar border looks good, however, there is something that has bugged me since TA began... :)

The limit bar / next level bar are waay too bright, it's hard to even read them.
The background is a seriously bright grey colour, and the actual bar colour is very light too.

On the original, the background and bar colour look much darker.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-12 07:15:19
The colors on the new limit bars has changed to be more like the original colors. I did have to darken it a bit so you could see the limit flashing as it looked way too bright. I dont want to darken it further. I took the original colors and darkened it 15%. Anyways if you want to darken them further open up the png and darken it. Its not hard at all.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Timber on 2010-08-12 14:39:36
The colors on the new limit bars has changed to be more like the original colors.
I took the original colors and darkened it 15%.

Sorry dude, it's not even close. Forget your color pickers and percentages, use your eyes to compare:

(http://justincoutts.com/files/ss/SS-2010-08-13_00.20.54.png)

Original is on top.
TA is on bottom, it's like someone turned the brightness to max. The color of the bar is so washed out it almost looks white, and the background that is supposed to be dark grey, is nowhere near dark at all.

Does anyone agree, or am I crazy lol?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-12 14:47:40
Very interesting. Is that screen from in game? Perhaps my program to grab the paletted images is off.

edit: my bad, it seems i was using the wrong palette for the limit bar. dont worry, i will have it all fixed up before i release GUI v2.0

Re did the limit bars with the proper coloring.

(http://a.imageshack.us/img37/7326/font2h.png) (http://img37.imageshack.us/i/font2h.png/)

Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: DLPB_ on 2010-08-13 08:29:50
ahh so that's what caused the difference...

Well all in all, it is a great mod and improvement over the last one.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Timber on 2010-08-13 09:17:23
I agree, nice work sl, this is looking really great.  :-D
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Shankifer on 2010-08-13 19:07:51
What do you use to create/repaint your bars and borders. I've tried photoshop/paint/adobe flash (because it doesn't pixelate) and all of them seem to lose their appearance as bars when I zoom in or out, or resize the image. I'm trying to make 2 separate large "blue box" images with the border for a background. At the same time though, I also need to make some of them VERY tiny to mess with my aero.msstyles images (if you know anything about them, windows makes them so tiny they are barely visible without zooming a good bit.)

And as for on-topic thoughts (  ;D )

The "imi" in Limit just seems to really catch my eye, along with the "at" in Materia

Something about all the "i"s in the screen shots, it looks like they're taking up more space than they should.
Is it just me, or is it just one of those things you have to just deal with?

It's not a huge problem, It just caught my eye  :)
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-13 21:32:05
The text is aligned pixel perfect with the originals, so any problems with this were in the original as well.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-14 07:00:20
I am looking for a few beta testers for the new GUI. You must be very fussy. Let me know if you are interested.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: OwenWalker on 2010-08-15 19:11:36
I'll give the new font a testing :) Need to play through from the beginning again anyway..
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Senti on 2010-08-31 14:24:42
I'd be up for it. Also, random thought, anyone tried using the FF7 logo font as the primary font in game?
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: nikfrozty on 2010-08-31 15:53:21
I'd be up for it. Also, random thought, anyone tried using the FF7 logo font as the primary font in game?
Well the problem is there is no lowercase font for the logo so if you use it you will have to use uppercase letters only.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-31 16:48:59
I'd be up for it. Also, random thought, anyone tried using the FF7 logo font as the primary font in game?
Well the problem is there is no lowercase font for the logo so if you use it you will have to use uppercase letters only.

The new font is almost done. Finishing up testing soon hopefully.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Senti on 2010-08-31 17:43:09
Well the problem is there is no lowercase font for the logo so if you use it you will have to use uppercase letters only.
Wouldn't be a problem for me, of course there's always the alternative of creating a secondary version of the font with shorter letters to indicate lowercase, those still using the same style as the uppercase letters (there are many fonts out there that have this). But then a lot of people may not be too keen on that either, I suppose it'd be something for me to try out myself.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Covarr on 2010-08-31 18:55:13
The logo font, Runic MT Condensed, does in fact have lowercase characters. The thing is, it's kind of unsuited for reading for long periods of time. It'd be serious eyestrain. Not to mention, the in-game font needs to have similar proportions to the current in-game font to work right, which Runic MT Condensed most certainly does not.

Dafont.com has a font called "Final Fantasy Font" which seems to be based on the logo font, but it's not nearly as good, it's a poor imitation, and it's missing a ton of elements from the original font. I strongly advise against using it for pretty much anything.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: Kudistos Megistos on 2010-08-31 21:51:09
The logo font, Runic MT Condensed, does in fact have lowercase characters. The thing is, it's kind of unsuited for reading for long periods of time. It'd be serious eyestrain.

This.

Serif fonts are bad for games, especially "decorative" ones. Simplicity is what you need in a font if you're going to be staring at it on a screen for a long time, especially when we'll all be playing the game at different resolutions.
Title: Re: Verdana Font
Post by: sl1982 on 2010-08-31 22:11:47
Not to mention the whole point of Team Avalanche is to enhance the game whlle keeping the original feel. Changing fonts to something like this would not accomplish that goal.